(rshsdepot) Lubbock, TX

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of "The Day the Music Died."  Buddy  
Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in a plane crash  
in Iowa.   You may ask what this has to do with railroad stations.  
 
In Holly's hometown of Lubbock, Texas the Fort Worth and Denver South  Plains 
Railway depot today houses the Buddy Holly Center.  Copied below is  a bit of 
the depot's history.
 
The original article, along with a photo, can be found at:
_http://www.buddyhollycenter.org/history.aspx_ 
(http://www.buddyhollycenter.org/history.aspx)  
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Over seventy years ago the first railroad passengers disembarked onto the  
brick paved platform of the Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway Depot in  
Lubbock. Freight trains stopped on a second track behind the passenger train 
to  have their cargo unloaded onto an elevated wooden platform, then carried 
through  overhead doors into a large freight room. Designed by prominent Fort 
Worth  architect, Wyatt C. Hedrick, in the Spanish Renaissance Revival style, 
this was  the largest and most elaborate of the depots built along the 
Lubbock-Estelline  branch of the Burlington Railroad’s Fort Worth and Denver City 
line. With ornate  carved limestone detailing, paneled wood doors, and clay tile 
roofing, the new  building was evidence that Lubbock was not the same frontier 
town it had been a  few years earlier and, perhaps, a precursor to other 
surprises to be found on  the Texas South Plains. 
 
In the years following its opening, the depot became less a forerunner of  
things to come and more an example of what neglect can produce. Abandoned by the 
 railroad in the early 1950s, it became a warehouse for various businesses 
and  then a salvage yard. The building was converted into a restaurant in the 
mid  seventies, one of the first successful examples of adaptive use in the 
city. In  1979, the Lubbock City Council designated it the first Lubbock Historic  
 Landmark, and in 1990 the depot was listed on the National Register of 
Historic  Places. A few years later it became the anchor and namesake for a 
multi-block  entertainment area, the Depot District. Following the closure of the 
restaurant  in 1997, the City of Lubbock purchased the building. Newly renovated, 
restored,  and expanded, it recently reopened as the Buddy Holly Center, a 
facility housing  an extensive collection of Buddy Holly memorabilia, changing 
arts exhibits, and  a gallery showcasing West Texas musicians. 
 
Today, new surprises await visitors approaching the building atop a  restored 
wooden freight platform. To the west, the clay tile roof, limestone  details, 
and thick brick walls of the old depot remain beyond a brick paved  courtyard 
where trains once parked. On the east side of the platform, a new wing  
contains a lobby, memorabilia exhibits, and support spaces. Drawing on the  depot’s 
architectural vocabulary, the design of the addition incorporates brick,  
stone, and clay tile roofing, though providing improved environmental and  
security controls necessary for the artifact collection. While the old building  
features a stone and brick frieze with a series of paired decorative pilasters,  
the new addition’s frieze is punctuated with projecting steel Stratocaster  
guitar forms, a reference to Buddy Holly’s own guitar exhibited inside. 
 
The Buddy Holly gallery itself is shaped like a guitar, defined by curving,  
piano-finished cherry wood exhibit cases on three sides and a gloss black  
display wall on the fourth. Exposed steel trusses with an industrial feel  
support the roof, contrasting with the elegant finishes of the exhibit cabinets.  
These structural components allude to the exposed steel beams in the waiting  
rooms of the original depot. 
 
North of the lobby in the wing that once held freight are office spaces and  
a gift shop. A new ramp connects the raised floor of the addition and  
administrative spaces to the lower west wing. On the south side of the ramp,  windows 
open out to the courtyard. On the other side, large sheets of unframed  glass 
have replaced the overhead doors, providing both light and views into the  
gift shop. 
 
High-ceilinged spaces in the west wing that were formerly public waiting  
rooms and the trainmaster’s office are now galleries for changing exhibits of  
contemporary art by artists from across the nation. The original west windows  
were retained to maintain the historic integrity of the facade, but are blocked 
 by freestanding display walls that allow indirect light to extend around the 
 perimeter of the walls. The original west entrance lobby also remains, in 
this  case as a more intimate space with gallery wall surfaces above original 
built-in  oak benches. No longer sidetracked, the old depot is once again a 
destination,  with both memories and surprises. Architects: Heather McKinney, 
Architects, in  association with Driskill/Hill Architects, Lubbock Exhibit 
Casework: Southwest  Museum Services, Houston Steel Art: Steve Teeters, Lubbock 
Authors: Gary W.  Smith, AIA, Facilities Manager, City of Lubbock; Sally Still 
Abbe,  Planner.
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